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9 Jan 2018

Former INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega Gets New Federal Appointment

Prof. Attahiru Jega has been named as a member of a high-powered National Universities Commission committee to help government reposition Nigeria's university system.

Prof. Attahiru Jega

A former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega and a former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Peter Okebukola have been appointed by the Federal Government as members of a committee with the mandate to review the university system in Nigeria.

This was made public on Monday by the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed in an interview with journalists in Abuja after he appeared before the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND to defend the 2018 budget proposed by the commission.

He said, “The NUC has constituted a high-powered committee of very credible senior academics. Most of the members of this small committee are former vice chancellors, former executive secretaries of the NUC and some had held positions like pro-chancellor, chairman of INEC and minister of education. We have given them a six-term reference to help us with repositioning Nigeria’s university system.

“One of the areas we want them to look at is the issue of post-graduate training and how to reform the training and produce good quality PhDs. How do we get to see that serious post-graduate students complete their studies within the normal period of three years? It could be less or more than three years but three years is the normal period across the world.

“This committee has started working and it is under the chairmanship of Prof. Peter Okebukola, former Executive Secretary of NUC; with Prof. Attahiru Jega, former Vice-Chancellor and former Chairman of INEC, among others, as members. In the next six weeks, we should receive the first report which, among other things, will help us to advise the NUC on the best way to carry out our proposed curricular review in the county and to advise us on the ranking of universities.

“We always wake up every morning and see on the social media that the NUC has ranked (universities). The NUC has not ranked any university in several years. We have not done it, but people just sit down to create it.”